Chapter 19: Amon Village!
Chapter 19:
Amon Village!
IT HAD BEEN about a day since we left town. We had found the landmarks we’d been told about, so we knew we were near the village. I told Tigerson I was getting thirsty, so we decided to rest near a stream.
<Noir, would you do the honors?>
“Sure thing.” I filled my canteen with fresh water and poured it over the flower on Tigerson’s head.
<Oooh ahhh, that’s the stuff…!>
Tigerson got a little silly like usual. I was used to it, but Emma and Luna looked aghast.
“Oh, don’t be so weirded out. He needs it to live.”
“D-do you always do that? Where is that effeminate voice coming from?!”
“He has two sets of vocal cords, apparently.”
“Sir Tigerson is unusual in many regards, I see.”
<My tulip indicates my physical and mental state,> Tigerson explained when he snapped out of his trance.
“So it has to do with your mood too?” Emma asked.
<Indeed. My flower loses its vigor when I am sad, and if it were to ever be severed, I would be weakened severely. Although, it will eventually grow back.>
Basically, the flower was both the source of his power and his biggest weak spot. But more importantly, I was hungry. Emma seemed to be too.
“Wanna roast some fish?” I asked, gazing into the water.
“Good idea. I guess we should hurry up and catch some.”
“Yeah, let’s give it a shot.”
We set to searching for fish in the stream. It was so clear, we found some right away. I took one down in the shallows by throwing a knife.
“Ha! You have a Throwing skill, don’t you?” said Luna.
“It’s actually pretty useful. I can instantly throw a knife from my Pocket Dimension too.”
“Well, I’m not about to let you beat me.”
Luna fired off several shots from her magical firearm and the exact same number of fish floated up to the surface. The Energy Shots she used this time were pretty small.
“I can control the size,” she explained when I commented on it. “I think the smallest I can do is about an inch in diameter, but the better I get at Magical Firearms, the more control I’ll have.”
“You’re pretty great at it already, Luna!”
Both Emma and I applauded. Her shooting skills were nothing to sniff at. She had sharp eyes and good aim, and she could use Healing Shot. She might knock herself out when she overdid it, but relatively speaking that was nothing compared to the rest of her skills.
“Well, I got the fish, now we need to cook them.”
<I see, Emma just picked them up after everyone else did the work. What an easy job you have.>
“I don’t wanna hear it from you!”
<Indeed.>
“Fine, then Tigerson will help me cook. We’re going to go find something to burn.”
<Excuse me, I am Noir’s familiar.>
“Don’t get hung up on particulars!”
Emma hopped on Tigerson’s back to go search for kindling while Luna and I took a break. Somehow, Emma and Tigerson already seemed to be getting along. She always had a knack for taming stray dogs, and she was good at talking to nonhumans too. I had to admit, I was a little jealous.
When Emma and Tigerson returned, we prepared and ate our fish together, then continued on our journey to the village. Tigerson only had to run for about ten minutes before we arrived at our destination.
There was a board near the entrance with the words “Amon Village” written on it, so we could be sure we had the right place. It was an agricultural village, and it covered a lot of land. A fence surrounded the perimeter to keep monsters out. Something like a moat ran along the inside of the fence too, only it had no water. It was probably designed to act more like a pit trap—any monsters or animals that got through the fence would fall right in.
“Wow, it looks like they have all sorts of ingenious protective measures.”
“Yeah. There’s no big town nearby, so they have to look out for themselves.”
It had to be hard, living so far out in the countryside. They no doubt had different troubles out here than the kind we were used to.
We startled some men when we entered the village on Tigerson’s back. The only reason they didn’t call for help was because they saw the three of us riding on top of him.
“He’s our familiar,” I assured them. “He doesn’t attack people.”
<You may rest easy.>
“It can talk?!”
<You find speech that surprising? I shudder to think how you would react to watching me eat.>
I don’t think they would find that part particularly surprising!
All that aside, I turned to the thirty-something man we’d just met. “We’re adventurers. Your village put up a request, right?”
“Huh? What request?”
“Oh, it must be about the thieves,” his companion said.
“Ah, maybe you’re right.”
I was confused by their response. How did they not know what I was talking about? Lola said the head of the village had made the request. The villagers’ expressions abruptly changed when I brought up that detail.
“Don’t tell me that’s what he was up to in town two weeks ago,” one of them groaned.
“He said he was getting medicine for a backache. I didn’t think he would actually put in a request…”
It sounded like he had done it without consulting the villagers. I asked them why he might do that.
“I’m sure that if it was too public, someone would leak it to the thieves.”
“Yeah, plus there was that incident with his grandkid, too.”
“Anyway, to think his request would attract adventurers commanding such a powerful monster!”
The villagers were unusually excited, not that I could blame them—who wouldn’t be reassured having Tigerson as an ally? They were so excited they ran ahead of us all the way to the back of the village.
“Chieeeeef! Chieeeeeef!”
“The adventurers are here! The adventurers are here!”
They rushed into a wooden house. Not a minute later, an old man tumbled out of the building. He dashed out as fast as he could while pulling up his pants. I’d never seen anything quite that undignified before.
“A-a-a-are you the adventurer who accepted my request?!”
<Do I look like an adventurer to you? I am their familiar.>
“My most humble apologies! My excitement has clouded my judgement.”
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. My name is Noir, and these are my comrades, Emma and Luna. And this is Tigerson.”
“Goodness. I’m the village chief, M.T. Head. Despite my name, I’m of perfectly sound mind—oh, drat, d-does anyone have a belt?” The chief was frantically trying to keep his pants up. I guess they’d gotten loose when he tumbled out of the house. “Hurry! Or these wonderful adventurers will be defiled with the sight of my dirty underwear!”
“Here, use this.”
“Thank you! You will be the next chief!”
“Hooray!”
Wh-what the…?
What…interesting people. Maybe the village was worse off than I thought.
“Would your honorable party deign to save us? Our village has been beset by thieves for a long time. We’ve endured until now, but…a few days ago, they abducted my dearest granddaughter. I’ve had quite enough.”
So the village chief risked the long, dangerous journey to town for his sweet granddaughter, and without saying a word to anyone. Chief M.T. Head seemed like a pretty good guy after all.
“We intend to help you to the best of our abilities, but we’d appreciate the cooperation of everyone in the village,” I said.
“Everyone! Lend your ears to the kind words of the great Noir! I know I haven’t been much use as village chief.”
As the chief was brought to tears, overcome with emotion, he was surrounded by smiling villagers. They all seemed to trust him. Frankly, it tickled me to see such a heartwarming spectacle.
“How nice…”
“Yeah.”
Emma and I shared a chuckle. Once things settled down, we dug into the details. As far as the thieves were concerned, the villagers weren’t allowed to leave the village, and the thieves kept an eye out to make sure they didn’t. The chief had to put on quite the act in order to leave the village—he’d even been foaming at the mouth. He also came up with this story about meeting an old friend to get some medicine.
Even with all that, the thieves had threatened that, if he did anything out of the ordinary, they’d kill his granddaughter, but he was undeterred.
“Hm.” Luna abruptly pointed her gun at one of the houses.
“What’s wrong?”
“I sense something strange from that direction.”
“Huh, you’re right, there’s someone there.”
A man was peering out from behind the building.
“Wait! He’s one of ours. Good Guy, what are you doing? Come here.”
The man headed over with a sullen look on his face. The chief seemed fond of him, though, and introduced him with a big smile.
“Good Guy started living with us about six months ago. He may have a strange name, but he’s a hero who drives away boars and bears. And I have a lot of sympathy for him on the weird name front.”
“Nice to meet you, I’m Good Guy…” He seemed unusually unenergetic compared to the other villagers, but it sounded like the others relied on him.
“What’s wrong, Good Guy? You look unwell.”
“Oh, I just did a little too much belly-dancing yesterday, so I guess I’m just tired out. Ha ha ha.”
“Cheer up, Good Guy, we’ll give you some of our vegetables later.”
“Ah, thanks.”
He seemed fine with the other villagers, but wary of us. Maybe he was just shy. That wasn’t that weird. You can’t expect people to instantly trust strangers they’ve just met.
“He sure is popular for someone who just moved here six months ago, huh?”
“Maybe it’s because he has such a different vibe.”
“And maybe his name actually suits him, unlike the chief. At least, that’s what I’d like to think.”
“Yeah, I get that feeling too.”
“Sir Noir,” said Luna. “He seems like he might be useful, what do you think? I’d also like to know a little something about the villagers’ abilities.”
“Oh yeah, lemme look into that.” On Luna’s advice, I used my Discerning Eye on Good Guy.
Name: Good Guy
Age: 33
Species: Human
Level: 34
Occupation: Thief
Skills: One-Handed Blades (Grade C); Stone Bullet
So he wasn’t such a good guy after all?!